Our Man In New York: New York Comic Con Day Two by Tony Esmond

The second day of the New York Comic Con 2016 was pretty ruddy great. I managed to blag it early into the Dealers Hall, which seemed eerily empty compared to the crazy hours of opening yesterday. During this magical hour I got to handle and gaze at some incredible original art…

Thor Kirby pages, Steve Ditko horror pages, Jim Starlin, the Buscema brothers – it was all there. Pages that you can touch and examine – but all with a huge pricetag. Today was going to be all about the art and the back issues. If you have to ask how much these cost, you ain’t got enough dough to buy them!

After a short time the best quarterback in comics Brian Vander arrived (pictured here with punchy Marc Laming). A pal who hangs with us every year at the NYCC and beyond and the hugely talented artist on World of Grey comic (co-crated with Bob Lucenti) and so much more. (You can find more about Brian and his great art on Twitter @vander11chi).

Marc Laming and Brian Vander

Time to hit Artists Alley again… and our first stop was to see Daniel Warren Johnson. We were lucky enough to have Daniel as a guest on a recent episode of The Awesome Comics Podcast and he is totally the guy to watch at the moment. His art is (as I told him) Geoff Darrow level detailed, with some of the best design and action you’ll see in comics. You have got to get over to www.space-mullet.com or Twitter @danielwarrenart to see more of this incredible work.

Daniel Warren Johnson

This photo shows a page from Daniel’s new mini comic Martok, about that much put upon Klingon from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Brian Vander asked this photo to be called “Suck it, Vince”)…

Whilst we were hanging out at Marc Laming’s table I was lucky enough to meet Tristan Jones. Currently working on Aliens for Dark Horse, this is another guy who is really going places. We swapped stories of comics and laughed at some NSFW tales.

Roaming the main floor I also got to finally meet the writer of Bruce Lee: The Dragon Rises – a great guy called Jeff Kline. This was a great new series that launched with a zero issue on New Comic Book Day this year. Published by Darby Pop, It’s co-written with Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee and has some great pencils and inks by Brandon McKinney. I hadn’t been able to find new issues in the UK, so grabbed the new ones straight away.